The Source of Unease
Crack. C-Crack—!
From every corner of the room, the sickening sound of snapping bones and tearing sinew echoed in rapid succession.
"Aaaargh!"
"M-Monster...!"
As parasitic tentacles erupted from bodies contorting at impossible, grotesque angles, the seminar hall descended into utter pandemonium.
I suppose turning every single one of them was too much to ask, Haneul mused quietly.
Using Transfer’s spatial ability, he had diluted the chemical agent into the venue's drinking water in the most calculated ratio possible. Even so, given the limited supply he had brought, only about a tenth of the gathering had actually succumbed to the transformation.
Actually, this works out even better.
If his grand plan to reveal the Kaijin to the world was to succeed, it required the right theatrical flair. Had every hidden beast in the room shed its human skin all at once, the chaos would have spiraled beyond his ability to manage. A fraction was just enough.
Grrrrr...
G-Grrrk...
Standing with his arms crossed, Haneul watched as the newly awakened Kaijin rolled back their bloodshot eyes, their ravenous gazes locking onto the terrified survivors.
"Now, now. None of that."
He couldn't let them butcher the crowd just yet. Raising his hand, Trauma projected his voice with crisp authority. Instantly, the monsters snapped their attention toward him.
"Everyone, assemble over here."
At his command, the beasts shambled through the paralyzed crowd, stumbling forward in an obedient mass.
Just as planned.
Under normal circumstances, orchestrating such obedience without mass hypnosis would have been impossible. But during his earlier subjugation of Transfer, he had discovered a curious fact: the moment Transfer lost consciousness and revealed her monstrous form, she had begun obeying him instinctively, even without hypnotic suggestion.
His command over them was far weaker than full hypnosis—at a distance, he could do little more than incite them to violent rampages. But the crucial takeaway was clear: even without casting hypnosis, he could exert a faint, primal dominance over these mindless horrors.
Kyu-reek?
Or rather, to be precise, they were not submitting to him at all, but to the grotesque little entity squirming inside his coat. A classic case of the fox borrowing the tiger's authority.
"Yes, slowly now. Maintain order and form a neat line."
Masking his dry amusement behind an impassive facade, Haneul lined up the monstrosities, silently praying that the little creature in his breast pocket wouldn't change its mind over the next few minutes.
Pandora, you’re capturing all this, right?
He took note of the smartphone lenses aimed at him from every corner of the hall, trusting that this spectacle was being broadcast cleanly to the world outside.
For the people trapped inside the seminar hall, the scene unfolding before their eyes was an unmitigated nightmare.
"M-Master...?"
"Dear God..."
People who, only moments ago, had been their respected mentors, trusted comrades, and friends were now grotesque abominations trudging forward in a daze.
Grroooaaar...
"Hey, no pushing back there."
And the destination they were shuffling toward was none other than the intruder who had crashed the event—the A-Class Villain, Trauma.
"Are those people... taking orders from Trauma?"
"I-It looks like it! Look at how they move when he tells them to!"
Horrifically transformed humans, their eyes vacant, obediently followed Trauma's every direction. With a mere wave of his hand, Trauma commanded these monsters as if they were trained hounds. The sight struck everyone in the room with visceral horror—a dread shared by the countless onlookers watching the video feeds flooding the internet outside.
"...Trauma-sama."
Once the Kaijin stood in a tidy column behind Trauma, Transfer—who had been stationed right at his flank, her extended tentacles forming an impenetrable barricade against the heroes—spoke in a hushed, reverent murmur.
"Please, give the order."
"......"
"Just say the word, and I will slaughter every last one of them."
The heroes flinched, shrinking back in terror.
If Transfer unleashed another assault, they had no illusions about their chances. The attendees gathered in this hall were mid-to-low-tier heroes excluded from the executive summit. Overwhelmed by Transfer alone from the start, their ranks had been further gutted when a portion of their own allies mutated into abominations. And now, with Trauma radiating a suffocating aura of dread at the head of a nightmarish legion, what little morale they had left collapsed completely into the dirt.
"No, that won't be necessary, Miss Transfer."
Through the heavy despair, Trauma's voice resonated calmly.
"The game I have in mind is far too grand for something so vulgar."
"This... isn't the end?"
"What on earth is he after?!"
As Transfer bowed her head and obediently stepped back, the anxious murmuring among the heroes grew louder.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Have you ever heard the ghost stories about the Kaijin?"
Trauma began, his voice carrying effortlessly across the cavernous room.
"The urban legend claiming that humans capable of transforming into magical beasts live among us, mimicking ordinary citizens while infiltrating every corner of society. I am sure you have heard it at least once."
At his words, every gaze in the room drifted toward the drooling, hideous creatures lined up behind him.
"The reason I stormed this seminar today was to reveal to the entire world that this urban legend is absolute truth."
Trauma smiled beneath his mask. The air in the hall turned instantly to ice.
"N-No way..."
"D-Don't give us that bullshit!"
"And yet, did you not bear witness with your own two eyes?" Trauma replied in a smooth, honeyed cadence, brushing past their terrified protests. "You watched your own companions and colleagues twist into grotesque monsters."
The shouts died in their throats. The gruesome imagery from minutes prior replayed vividly in their minds.
"My faithful subordinates have already woven themselves into every layer of hero society. To give you a rough estimate... approximately half the world's population consists of Kaijin."
Color drained from every face. While nobody swallowed Trauma's claim whole, the mere suggestion of 'half the world' was enough to send an icy chill down their spines.
"Your family, your friends—any of them might be a Kaijin. Your relatives, your respected master, or perhaps your dearest disciple. Even the person you cherish most in this world could be one of my beasts."
Trauma stoked the flames of their dread, his tone laced with theatrical cruelty.
"Who knows? Perhaps the vast majority of your Top-Ranking Heroes are Kaijin as well."
As if to prove his point, Trauma reached out and gently stroked the chin of Transfer, who stood motionless beside him.
"Rank 4... is a Kaijin?"
"Is this real? Tell me this is a lie...!"
The hall plunged into complete, unadulterated pandemonium.
"Everyone. Why do you think I am revealing this astonishing truth to you today?"
Scanning the trembling faces before him, Trauma posed the question.
"Because I have grown utterly bored of this era!" he declared, his voice ringing with manic exuberance before anyone could muster a response. "Night after night, my subordinates prowl the streets devouring innocent people and hunting down self-righteous heroes. The number of lives sacrificed is beyond reckoning."
"............"
"Yet tell me, heroes... what do you call the times we live in today?"
Only one phrase sprang into the minds of the paralyzed crowd: The Era of Peace. Or, The Era of Heroes.
Whichever it was, if Trauma spoke the truth, both titles were grotesque mockeries.
"Even overwhelming victory loses its charm when it's absolute. It feels like winning one hundred to zero in a fighting game. It is dreadfully, terribly boring."
Trauma shook his head in exaggerated disdain.
"So, let us play an entertaining game."
Grrrrrr...!
Grooooo...!
As if on cue, the Kaijin behind him threw back their heads and howled in unison.
"The title of the game: Find the Hidden Kaijin! Of course, this is no harmless parlor trick. It is a death game where your very lives are on the line!"
Trauma lowered his voice, casting out the sinister bait to the horrified crowd.
"For your information, the Kaijin standing behind me represent only a minuscule fraction. Even now, there are still Kaijin lurking among those of you standing over there."
".........?!"
"It wouldn't do to hand out the answer sheet right at the start of a guessing game, now would it?"
Instantly, people began stepping away from one another, putting frantic distance between themselves and their peers. Looks of suspicion, dread, and paranoia rippled across the room like wildfire.
"The Era of Peace concludes today. From this moment onward begins the Era of Paranoia—where every soul suspects the next."
Observing the spreading terror, the corners of Trauma's lips curled into a faint smile beneath his mask.
"So, my dear heroes... please, join hands and fight with everything you have."
A sharp gleam ignited behind the eyeholes of his mask.
The moment the words left his lips, Transfer wrapped her arms around Trauma, and the two vanished into thin air.
Skrrrk...!
Grroooaaar!
Left behind without a master, the drooling Kaijin snapped and lunged forward at the crowd all at once.
KABOOOOOM!
At that very instant, an earth-shattering roar tore through the hall as the anti-beast barrier was pulverized into dust.
"...Miracle Shine, please evacuate the civilians."
The girl who had effortlessly demolished a barrier no ordinary person would dare dream of breaching stepped inside, her body battered and bruised.
"I'll handle this."
Her identity was none other than Ariel.
...No matter how much I think about it, something is seriously wrong, thought Miracle Shine, utterly exhausted as she barely managed to catch up behind her.
Her combat style is practically precognition.
Crunch, squelch...
Fine, let's say she somehow knew the shortest route from the dorms to here.
Staring dumbfounded as Ariel methodically and ruthlessly slaughtered the Kaijin in a one-sided massacre, Miracle Shine began to mutter under her breath.
"But how on earth does she know I'm Miracle Shine?"
Cold sweat traced a path down her forehead. After all, she hadn't even transformed into her magical girl persona yet.
Ariel Everray poured every ounce of her strength into the punches slamming into the Kaijin before her.
Too late again. Am I fated to miss Trauma every single time?
Pausing for a fraction of a second, she drew in a deep, steadying breath.
...The real problem is the auto-save point. Why did it have to trigger at the dorms, so far away from the seminar hall?
Without missing a beat, she tilted her head a fraction of an inch to the side, cleanly evading a lashing tentacle.
No, none of that matters right now.
Compared to when she had first set foot in the seminar, her eyes gleamed with a chilling, seasoned maturity.
Professor Oh Ji-seok.
A crimson aura surged outward from her body, crackling with fierce intensity.
Can I save him this time?
With that singular resolve, the fire within her blazed anew.